{"id":915501,"date":"2014-12-10T10:57:05","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T15:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pypl.org\/?p=915501"},"modified":"2014-12-10T10:57:05","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T15:57:05","slug":"bridges-out-of-poverty-understanding-acceptance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/?p=915501","title":{"rendered":"Bridges out of Poverty: Understanding, Acceptance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Alex Andrasik, Adult Services Librarian<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Youth Services Librarian Sarah and I recently attended a seminar at the Pioneer Library System facilitated by the stupendous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ahaprocess.com\/solutions\/community\/consultants\/prudence-pease\/\">Prudence Pease<\/a>, an aha! Process Bridges Out of Poverty educator and the self-proclaimed \u201cmost controversial judge in Vermont.\u201d\u00a0 Her topic?\u00a0 Poverty\u2014its causes, its costs, and the insidious way it can thread through a life, influencing everything from your decision-making to your storytelling.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a two-edged blade, because for all that poverty puts people at a disadvantage in so many ways, she says that it also prepares them to be more self-reliant, pragmatic, community-minded, and creative in their problem solving.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It was a fascinating take on the subject, and one that I never considered, looking at it from my privileged position.\u00a0 People who have experienced poverty have a set of skills that I, with my middle-class background, will probably never be an expert at.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But we can\u2019t underestimate the negative impact that poverty has on those who are living it, and even on those who lived it in the past and found their way out.\u00a0 One of the most striking examples that Ms. Pease gave of the way life just doesn\u2019t flow the same way for these folks is the simple chore of laundry.\u00a0 For many of us, it\u2019s as simple as throwing in a load and going about our day.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>But imagine you\u2019re a single parent of two kids, with no at-home washer-dryer, no car, and a Laundromat at least ten minutes away.\u00a0 Now the process becomes a near-Herculean task\u2014and you can\u2019t just do the dishes, neaten the living room or (heaven forbid) relax with a book while you\u2019re wrangling all those moving parts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>People in these circumstances experience the tasks that I take for granted in a very different way, and according to Ms. Pease, ordinary chores like this can take up to five times longer for people living in poverty.\u00a0 Where is someone to find the time to attend classes, give their job search the attention it needs, or take a moment to read to their kids?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>These luxuries are still possible\u2014no one suggests otherwise\u2014but they are undeniably more difficult to attain.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why we should look on all our fellow community members not with tolerance\u2014a well-meaning word that often disguises disdain or annoyance\u2014but with acceptance.\u00a0 Ms. Pease advised the librarians in attendance at her program that she doesn\u2019t expect anyone to <i>like<\/i> every action someone takes, but we have to at least try to understand <i>why <\/i>they took that action.\u00a0 That\u2019s the doorway to acceptance, and through it, maybe some mutually beneficial dialogue.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about aha! Process and Bridges out of Poverty, click <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ahaprocess.com\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Alex Andrasik, Adult Services Librarian &nbsp; Youth Services Librarian Sarah and I recently attended a seminar at the Pioneer Library System facilitated by the stupendous Prudence Pease, an aha! Process Bridges Out of Poverty educator and the self-proclaimed \u201cmost<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-915501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adult-services-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=915501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=915501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=915501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=915501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}